New Yankees pitching coach Larry Rothschild faces a tough test in the Bronx

Jerry Lai/US PresswireLarry Rothschild (center), then the pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs, speaks with relief pitcher Sean Marshall on the mound last season. He has won two World Series rings, one as a bullpen coach with the Cincinnati Reds in 1990 and a pitching coach with the Florida Marlins in 1997.

TAMPA, Fla. — The stuff was much too good, Larry Rothschild thought to himself, for it to be wasted with sloppiness.

Al Leiter began his second inning on May 11, 1996 by walking the first batter he faced and plunking the next. He had yet to give up a hit — his stuff was that good — though at this pace he’d be lucky to last into the fifth inning.

Rothschild, then the pitching coach for the Florida Marlins, has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the game’s gentlemen. But there are those moments when his even-tempered persona must take a back seat to something more volatile.

So, when Leiter ducked into a back room between innings, Rothschild followed him in, and tore into his pitcher.

“He’s like, what the … what are you doing?” Leiter said last week, sparing details to keep the story G-rated. “I remember I looked at him and I go, ‘Larry, take it easy, man.’”

“Then, I end up throwing a no-hitter.”

Rothschild, 56, inherits the keys to a Yankees rotation that enters the season under scrutiny, a responsibility he has earned because of stories just like these. Of thankless hours agonizing over videotape. Of his ability to connect with the sunniest of pitchers as well as the surliest. Of players impressed at his knack for doing the right things at just the right time.

“He knows when to hit the accelerator,” Leiter said of the Yankees’ new pitching coach. “He knows when to hit the brakes.”

Rothschild begins his tenure with a rotation that general manager Brian Cashman admits is incomplete. It features an ace in CC Sabathia, an emerging star in Phil Hughes, a career underachiever in A.J. Burnett, and two spots that on Opening Day may be filled by journeymen, rookies or a combination of both.

It will be his job to help the Yankees make it work.

“We’re really comfortable with this,” Cashman said. “We gave him a three-year contract for a reason.”

Each pitcher brings vastly different personalities, problems to fix, mental blocks. But those who have worked closely with him believe there are few better for the job than Rothschild, who Leiter described as the antithesis of “cookie-cutter coaches.”

“It’s not what builds good athletes,” Rothschild said. “The real good athletes sometimes do things differently. You have to decipher personality-wise, mechanics-wise, is it a hindrance? Is it a help? Where do you go with it? But I’ve always felt that I have enough to individualize things. I’ve never done it any other way.”

Not that he’s had reason to change.

Rothschild won a world championship as bullpen coach with the Reds. He won another as pitching coach of the Marlins. After an ill-fated stint as the first manager of the expansion Devil Rays (205-294 before he was fired), Rothschild returned to his hometown Chicago, where he was entrusted with the development of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.

Andy MacPhail, the former Cubs general manager, called Rothschild’s ability to connect with players extraordinary.

“He feels it in a real, meaningful sense,” said MacPhail, now with the Orioles. “It’s not about Larry. It’s really about how his teams and pitchers perform. We reached that conclusion before we even met him. Getting a chance to talk to him only reinforced the belief we had come to by doing the research.”

Rothschild spent nine seasons with the Cubs — working for five different managers — inspiring as much loyalty from players as scorn from fans.

Criticism rained down when Wood and Prior broke down with injuries, when Carlos Zambrano’s tantrums undermined his talent, when the Cubs inevitably fell short of the World Series.

“When you haven’t won in over 100 years, there’s some angst there, and some stuff that gets a little bit out of whack as far as putting perspective on things,” he said. “You’ve got to understand that there’s a lot of frustration there.”

Rothschild exercised an option to remain with the Cubs through 2011, not long after Zambrano publicly advocated the pitching coach’s return. But when the Yankees’ job came open, Cashman got a call from Cubs general manager Jim Hendry.

Rothschild had long desired a way to spend more time in Tampa, home of the Yankees’ training complex and the city in which he and his family had settled. Cashman didn’t consider Rothschild because he was already employed.

But Hendry, who knew of Rothschild’s wishes, told Cashman he would grant permission for an interview, though only with the Yankees.

Like MacPhail a decade ago, it didn’t take long for Cashman to jump on the opportunity.
“He emerged as the lead candidate,” Cashman said. “And after the interview, he was the obvious candidate.”

The Yankees viewed the process as a chance to insert objectivity into a task customarily dominated by subjectivity. Candidates submitted to the standard question-and-answer session. But they were also required to watch a standardized tape of Yankees pitchers and provide detailed breakdowns of their flaws.

For Rothschild, whose pitchers have long marveled at his dedication to film study and the detail of his advance scouting reports, the test highlighted an area of strength.

“He’s always in there doing video, always scouting,” said Neal Cotts, a former Cubs pitcher who is in camp trying to land a spot with the Yankees. “Every series when I was with the Cubs, for every hitter, there was a definite game plan.”

It is why Rothschild exuded confidence after the interview.

Said Rothschild: “I had watched enough tape before I ever walked into that room to know what I looked at.”

Now, the test is real.

As it was when he joined the Cubs, one of his first acts was reaching out to the Yankees’ pitchers, including the troubled Burnett. He has already spent time at the pitcher’s home in Maryland. The goal has been getting Burnett to stop worrying about the tiniest details of his mechanics, to instead focus on attacking the hitter in the batter’s box.

Said Rothschild: “He looked confused on the mound.”

Getting Burnett back in line will hardly be Rothschild’s only task — Cashman insists Rothschild wasn’t brought in specifically to fix the right-hander — but as he begins his tenure with the Yankees it may be the task that’s most pressing.

“I think he’s perfectly capable of going out there and having a good year for us,” Rothschild said. “It’s my job to get him to that point and put him in position to do that.”